Rocket Bomber - article - business - publishing - Illustrated Empire: Own the Shop

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Say circumstances handed me a chunk of cash and the mandate, “Start a new comics publisher. Licensed manga, manhwa, Euro-comics, English originals, et al. and thank you. Here’s a wad of cash; tell me how you’ll use it.”

Kodansha launched their US comics imprint with a scant 2 Million Dollars [see also] — granted, Kodansha doesn’t have to negotiate licenses [as a major publisher in Japan, they already own them] and also, Kodansha doesn’t have to establish a Tokyo office, fly executives and editors across the Pacific, spend money smoozing the gatekeepers and content-rights holders, convincing the most conservative businesspeople [& as in many industries, mostly conservative business men] on the planet to take a chance on a no-name small firm with no publishing history, few alliances, sketchy prospects, and an amateur as Publisher & CEO.

All that said, Stu managed it. And if someone handed me $16 Million Dollars [I’ll need more than the token $2Mil. Kodansha fronted] then I’d make one hell of a run at it.
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What’s the difference between a small publisher and a self-publisher? Maybe an S-corp or some other legal doc, but it’s mostly a matter of scale. A self publisher has one writer, one editor [or purchases proofreading and other minor editorial services retail, one book at a time], a very modest backlist (whatever one person can manage to write), and no budget for marketing. A small publisher will have an editorial staff (however small) and deal with multiple writers & properties, but the backlist is still quite modest, all things considered. Every city and most larger towns already have at least one publisher — maybe they only do regional titles or kids books or they’re the University press at the local institution of higher learning, but they’re out there. A lot of folks can do it — have done it — and while it’s not a way to get rich it *is* a way to produce books.

What’s the difference between any small publisher and one of the major multi-media conglomerates that control programming, publishing, movies, music, and your life?

Night and day.

Starting small means starting from zero, really. A major publisher engenders imprints like a snake sheds its skin: it’s a natural process, happens all the time as the beast grows. They have an exisiting infrastructure (editorial & marketing departments, contacts and contracts with printing companies — and not just an arrangement with a book distributor but direct distribution to retail) and there’s no way to copy that. If Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin, Random House, Scholastic, or Simon & Schuster decided to launch a new comic imprint tomorrow, we’d see books by December. And in fact, most of these major publishers already have a comics imprint [or a distribution agreement with an exisiting, smaller publisher]

• Random House distributes DC, Vertical, and Kodansha — and puts out excellent books under both the Pantheon and Villard imprints.
• Hachette owns Yen Press
• Scholastic has their own Graphix imprint (Home of Bone)(to say nothing of all the other illustrated books they do)
• Simon & Schuster distributes Viz
• Macmillan owns First Second, and distributes Seven Seas
  [& Disney owns Marvel, but despite recent growth Diz is not a ‘big six’ publisher]

Two majors are left out of the dance at the moment — HarperCollins lost it’s affiliation with Tokyopop (even before T-Pop went under) but given the success of the HC/Tokyopop cobranded comics they really should get into this soon. [hey, HC, if you don’t have a junior VP on this already: call me] — and Penguin/Pearson is the great white whale: the only major without a comics sidekick. The indy who lands a deal with Penguin (especially if they can get the oval-penguin logo on orange and black spines for a RH-Pantheon- or Villard-type lit-comics imprint) has all but won the lottery.

Like I said, any of the majors have the resources on hand to launch an imprint as easily as I sneeze. Heck, they don’t even need seed money; just reassign a few staff, or add the comics as a new initiative at an established brand [Del Rey, anyone?]

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Many folks think that to start a publisher, you need to copy the heirarchies and relationships of a Big Publishing House: you have a publisher [job title], and editors, and marketers, and contracts with a printer, and solid working relationships with distributors like Ingram or Baker & Taylor (or Diamond, maybe). You negotiate with agents (or authors direct) to acquire titles, you package & prepare books for print runs (carefully calculating just how many to print, based on your budget, and projected sales, but mostly your budget) and you all-but-bribe some buyers at Costco, Wal-Mart, and Barnes & Noble to get your books out on shelves, and then hope the eventual and unavoidable returns don’t amount to more than, say, half the total so you at least break even.

All that helps, sure.

Here’s the thing: that is a 19th century business model, using 18th century tech and medieval thought processes.

It also suffers from the worst possible contribution from 20th century business practices: accountants, and outsourcing.

To an accountant, of course it makes sense to contract with a printer: they can produce your books cheaper than you can, since they do nothing but print books all day: scale brings lower unit costs. The printer assumes the risks of investment in expensive machinery, and its maintenance and ongoing operation, and you as publisher just ‘rent’ the massive beast for however long it takes to run off your books. Of course the printer takes his cut [a reasonable profit] but he can still print them cheaper than you could yourself.

For a major publisher, with their extensive print runs, maybe the savings is only pennies per book, but we’re talking millions of books and accountants earn their salaries by pinching those pennies.

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That said,

Now consider the parable of Dell Computers:

Dell sold direct to the customer. Options added to one of a few basic frames were selected by the customer, then custom built from common components as needed and shipped — after it was paid for. Eventually, Dell got big enough that they shipped some of the most popular configurations to retailers — you could walk into a store, buy a stock Dell, and take it home the same day — but the bulk of their business was still direct internet sales.

Dell is typically considered to be a success. Instead of stockpiling in bulk of a predetermined model of computer, they waited for the market to tell them what was needed, and how many of each.

Considering all the components that can go into a computer, Dell has it rough — and they have to constantly purchase new peripherals and cards and chips and all that jazz, as the technology all-but-completely rolls over every 6 months.

A publisher attempting a similar strategy has it easy: paper, cover stock, and ink. Sure, you need more than black ink if you’re doing colour covers, or want to print full-colour, heavily illustrated things like textbooks and “coffee table” books — and comics — and you can certainly go wild with paper, from cheapest newsprint to fine cream papers — but honestly? Your local Kinko’s had all that in stock. This isn’t expensive.

One of my favourite quotes is: “The Press is only Free to a man who Owns one.” I can’t remember where I first read it, and I’m sure whoever wrote it down for me to read stole it from someone else. The point being made was that 1st-amendment-style-free-press only applied if you were wealthy enough to publish it yourself, otherwise there will always be an intermediary between you & your thoughts, and the world.

But it also points out: You can own a printing press. “Printing” is not just a service provided by specialist firms, Print is a verb as well as a noun, and for relatively small sums one can own the means of production. Just because the Bigs don’t bother with their own printing anymore, doesn’t mean you have to slavishly follow the business model dictated by scrooge accountants who don’t see value in ownership, and merely want to pare a business down to a preconceived ‘core’ without any thought of what that costs — in real terms, not just in dollars.

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First up, set up shop. I personally like the idea of intown real estate, if not downtown; find a funky artists’ neighborhood on the cusp of urban renewal, old industrial converted to loft space [and soon, to be converted by us back to industrial].

Pick a building with plenty of room. Consider that you’ll need some warehouse space, and some production space (for the printing equipment), and some office space — and we’re going to want enough leftover space right at the building’s ‘store front’ for, well, a store front.

Yes, we’re a publisher. Yes, we print our own books, on site. Yes, this is the nexus from which we distribute books to the world: but true to my bones this will also be a bookstore.

Why not? We sell books. Might as well sell a few right over the counter at the front of the shop.

Right now, I don’t know how much this might cost. Capital investment in equipment is, in fact, capital investment. But it can’t be that much, and why not have a printing press, if you sell books? Go ahead and sink the million or two into offset printing capabilities. (and then forget about those dollars. Don’t worry about paying it back; write it off from the start. Get the books to pay for themselves, and eventually they’ll also pay for the equipment. Maybe you find a printing firm to start off with, buy it as an ongoing business, and then start running your publishing imprint from the back room.)

There’s a one-time charge to prep a book for print, but once you have your plates set up for each book, well, you can run off 100 or 1000 copies whenever you like. Also, there is nothing stopping you from printing other folks’ books: run the printer as a sideline, same as anyone else who owns the machinery.

Given advances in technology, maybe you don’t even need a massive steam-powered-clockwork-rube-goldberg-press in the back room to make this work: Buy an Espresso Book Machine from On Demand Books for a scant $100,000. This is the same tech Ingram is using for its Lighting Source Print on Demand division — it’s an all-in-one box that fits in a closet:

Once again, if you own the means of production, there’s nothing stopping you from selling other books printed POD — or accepting orders from your customers to do custom print runs of family genealogies, vanity projects, local history, poetry, or even an actual goddamn novel from a local author — or competing for larger jobs like festival and sports programs (or similar annuals from the local symphony & opera), tourist guidebooks, marketing materials of many sorts, and maybe even a quarterly or bi-monthly magazine.

The printing business might just be self-sustaining, or even turn a profit… and when you’re not fulfilling orders, you can print your own graphic novels in the wee hours of the night.

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Say you want to be a small publisher.

Fine.

But you don’t have to contract everything out to someone else, paying their profit margins and guessing at the best size for a print run or how to warehouse the books from a overlarge order you placed because the per-book-cost was cheaper that way.

Own the press. Own the shop. Sell you own books from your own storefront, both in meat-space and online, and on Amazon or B&N or wherever. Sell digital books the same way, if you’re able and feel the need.

The investment will be worth it, and will be self-sustaining. And you can do a short-run of lovely books whenever you like.

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Other resources and references:

Here’s a guy who has been at it for years: http://www.fonerbooks.com/selfpublishing/

http://www.fonerbooks.com/paper.htm

http://www.fonerbooks.com/pod.htm

If you just want to get a *very* rough idea about the market, try these online calculators:
http://www.gorhamprinting.com/pricing/InstantQuote.php
http://www.48hrbooks.com/

This is just an estimate, from my own research: $3.50 a book for a run of 1000, $2.70 for a run of 3000

The devil is in the details, and who knows what an actual cost might be.

http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/cheaperprinting.shtml
“Now you can have just 100 to 500 books produced and used for promotional purposes. Authors may send copies to agents and publishers. Publishers may send copies to major reviewers, distributors, catalogs, specialty stores, associations, book clubs, premium prospects, foreign publishers suggesting translations and various opinion molders.”

http://ireaderreview.com/2009/05/03/book-cost-analysis-cost-of-physical-book-publishing/
“For larger print runs, the cost of printing a book comes to just 10% of a book’s price. So the perception that ebooks should be a lot cheaper than physical books because there’s no printing or binding is inaccurate.”

http://www.broadfootpublishing.com/publishing%20cost.htm
http://www.bestbookprinting.com/prices
http://dogearpublishing.net/resources-book-costs.aspx
http://www.millcitypress.net/book-printing-costs.aspx
http://printshopcentral.com/book-printing.php

I almost hesitate to add…
http://www.colorprintingforum.com/printing-business-practices/low-cost-color-book-printing-singapore-china-88.html

And the Espresso isn’t the only solution out there — Xerox sells direct:
http://www.xerox.com/digital-printing/printers/print-on-demand/docutech-6115/enus.html